


As Expected

by TeamGwenee



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Post Season 7, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 13:56:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13191507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeamGwenee/pseuds/TeamGwenee
Summary: In which Brienne and Jaime have soulmarks, and very little changes.





	As Expected

In her defence, most soulmarks did appear on a person's wrist. That was where she had expected to see it on the morning of her sixteenth birthday. So when Lady Brienne awoke to find it bare except for the usual freckles, she accepted it was another sign from her body to stop dreaming.

Love and handsome knights and happily ever afters were for other girls, not for her.

Mayhap her Septa would have told her, or her father or the Maester had Brienne thought to confide in them. If she had dressed in a gown with the help of her maids, one of them would probably have seen it. But Brienne's Septa had since departed Evenfall Hall in search of a true lady to teach.

She dressed in her usual breeches and went to the practice yard, took up at sword and practised until the sun descended once more. She worked and worked until her muscles were screaming in protest and her hands were blistered, only resting long enough to avoid serious damage.

The gentry and the guards and the servants all took her silence as confirmation of what the had already suspected. Lord Selwyn's daughter did not have a soulmate. The maids hissed the gossip as they scrubbed down the stone stairs and the squires cackled in the yard. They did not need Brienne to spell it out for them, not when a part of them had already known.

As should have Brienne, really.

~

A lion howling up at a sun and moon? Jaime twisted his head round, peering at the mark between his shoulder blades in the mirror. It had taken some time to locate it, but he knew it was there. After all, he already knew who is soulmate was.

The sun and moon had momentarily confused him, until he realised. He was the lion, and Cersei in her golden splendour and cool elegance was the sun and moon. His stomach had plummeted, as Jaime wondered if this was going to be his future. A solitary lion crying out to something beyond his reach. For all that he and Cersei was two parts of one whole, a treacherous part of him had always felt Cersei was never quite there.

He quickly quelled that notion. Cersei was his twin and his soulmate. Of course she was there. But she was also a lady, whilst he was a knight. And knights served and protected their ladies. It was chivalry.

He sought out his sister and asked if she had found her soulmark. Cersei had tossed a contemptuous head and snorted.

“We do not need soulmarks,” she informed him, “We came into this world together, we have always known whom we are meant to share our lives with. What use do we have for soulmarks?”

Concern rose within Jaime as he understood Cersei's meaning. She had no mark. But then, as she said, she didn't need it. She knew who her soulmate was and never doubted who she would spend her life with. Guilt stirred in Jaime's stomach as he thought of his own mark. Was that why he had been marked and not Cersei? As a reminder of what he owed to Cersei. An answer to all his doubts and fears.

Jaime crushed Cersei to his chest and swore he would do better.

~

A cracked rib. Nothing serious. Between the two of them, Brienne and Jaime were able to bind her rib cage up with bandages. With Winterfell bursting at the seams, something so simple was not worth the Maester's time. And so Brienne sat shivering in the cold air, hoping the cold would balance out any heat in her cheeks at being so exposed. Even with the hot water flowing through the walls of Winterfell, winter had put an icy nip in the air that had goosebumps prickling her skin Thankfully she kept her meagre breasts bound up, but the brush of Jaime's remain hand against her bare skin was enough to have trembling from something other than cold.

Jaime smirked at Brienne's discomfort.

“I've seen you in less, Brienne. Perhaps we can now accept that there is no modesty between us,” he suggested.

“Just shut up and help with these bandages,” she grumbled.

Jaime obeyed and with her help tucked the last bandage in place. As he did, he noticed a faint smudge of gold just peaking from the top of the linen binding up her breasts. He reached out and gently tugged it down, a smile cracking across his face at what he found.

Brienne slapped his hand away.

“What are you doing?” she snapped.

Jaime smiled innocently. “Oh nothing,” he said simply, putting the bandage back into place with a forced nonchalance that barely masked the excitement coursing through his veins and prickling his skin, “just looking at your soulmark,”

“I don't have a soulmark,” Brienne said gruffly, as automatic when refuting that she be a 'lady' or 'knight'.

Jaime raised and eyebrow and placed a gentle hand on Brienne's back, running an elegant finger down the lion. “Just here,” he murmured.

He grabbed his sword and and held it behind Brienne, so she can just see its reflection in the mirror.

Brienne's eyes widened. “I never knew it was there,” she admitted, tilting her head and trying to get a better look, “I can't see it properly. I need to find a mirror,”

“No you don't!” Jaime announced.

“Jaime, why are you taking your shirt off?” Brienne asked as Jaime shrugged out of his tunic. Her heart sped up as Jaime turned round, his bare back on display.

“There,” he said proudly, “That's what your mark looks like. Do you like it?”

Brienne wordlessly laid her hand on Jaime's mark, the lion between his shoulder blades roaring up at the sun and moon. Wincing slightly, she then bent her arm behind her back to touch the same place, when her own mark would be.

“It could be worse,” she said hoarsely.

“Definitely,” Jaime agreed, “It could be a ginger bear eating mutton,”

“I would have sliced it off if it were,” Brienne said numbly, still unable to detach her eyes from Jaime's mark. From their mark.

Jaime shrugged his shirt back on and turned round, facing Brienne with some concern.

“Brienne, are you alright?”

Brienne nodded slowly. “Ye-es,” she said uncertainly, “I'm just a bit...”

“Shocked?” Jaime suggested.

Brienne gave a small smile. “A little bit. I was convinced I didn't have a mark. I always tried to avoid looking at myself and no one mentioned it,”

“And the fact we share a mark. Does that not shock you?” Jaime forced a light-hearted smile onto his face, “I know you were holding out for a Wildling,”

Brienne glared. “No, I was _not_ holding out for a Wildling and _no_ I'm not-”

“Not shocked that we share a mark?” Jaime finished.

The blush that had been threatening Brienne ever since she took her shirt off flooded up her cheeks, but she did not shy away from Jaime's eyes.

“No, I do not find that too shocking,” she agreed.

“Good,” Jaime said, reaching out to pull Brienne into him arms, “Because neither do I. In fact, I rather suspected it,”

 


End file.
